


I'm Drunk, I Love You

by ethanramsey



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Making Out, Swearing, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethanramsey/pseuds/ethanramsey
Summary: In which Casey and Rafael stayed good friends after their breakup. Casey has been successful in keeping her unchanging feelings a secret, until one drunken night ruins her two long years of pretending.
Relationships: Rafael Aveiro/Main Character (Open Heart)
Kudos: 9





	I'm Drunk, I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> from the Filipino film with the same title that inspired the premise of this fic

Somehow, despite both of them being wasted, they made it back to Casey’s apartment.

They got a few strangers mad at them with how they laughed so much at _everything_ on the way home, but they made it back in one piece. Even the bottles of beer they brought home made it safely.

“Stop giggling so much.” Rafael hushed Casey, but laughing softly himself. “And hurry up with the door!”

“I’m trying. This takes concentration, okay?” She bites on her bottom lip through her grin, finally successfully pushing the key into the hole. “Aha!” she twists, and the door before them finally opens.

Casey steps a foot inside but abruptly stops, causing Rafael to bump into her. “Hmm- what?”

“We should be really quiet. The guys are probably asleep.” She whispers softly, and continues to walk inside ‘silently’ as soon as he nods in response.

She feels the west wall of the apartment with her hand and rests her back against it, creeping her way into her bedroom. He follows her lead, eyebrows furrowed in concentration to keep ‘quiet’ and be careful with the beer.

“Uh… guys?” After a long moment her sober roommates had to endure watching them ‘sneak’ into her room, Elijah finally speaks up.

Casey and Rafael freeze, and a second passes. Two. Three. And four. Before they both burst out laughing. _Again_.

“We’re just, going to quietly hang out in my room. Please carry on.” Casey flushes but grins at her roommates.

“Do you guys…want some beer? They’re not, they’re hot- um, I mean- not ice cold anymore, but still…beer. So.” Rafael adds.

The rest of their friends knew they were drunk, and knew the best thing to do right now is to just let them be. They were both extremely stubborn when sober, and even more so when drunk. Although Sienna gives Casey a worried glance, she doesn’t speak up, letting Elijah refuse the not-ice-cold beer and let them continue to her room.

Despite her state, she knew exactly what Sienna’s sad look meant. This crosses every line she could ever draw between her and Rafael, she knew that. But he’s going through something right now although he’s not telling her about it yet. She’s his good friend and she has to be there for him. There’s no stopping anymore anyway as she pushed the negative thoughts out of her mind as she closed the door behind them.

They knock out a few more bottles until Casey’s vision is blurry enough to confuse the time saying three o’ clock with eight in the morning.

She narrows her eyes, moving her phone closer and farther from her face in an attempt to properly read the time.

“I just don’t know where I’m going, Casey.” Rafael softly speaks after a moment of self-reflection. He laid in a thick comforter on the floor next to her bed.

“What?” she asks. “Are you planning to- you can’t go home now! I’m not sure what time it is but I know you haven’t had any sleep!”

Casey had too much to drink but she was fine, considering. Neither of them even had to puke. She’s still mostly aware of what was happening, and only struggled to keep herself awake.

“No… not that. In life, you know? Career-wise, love life. I just don’t know where I’m heading, to be honest.” Taking _a lot_ of effort to sit up and look up at her, Rafael sighs softly. “Do you remember when I told you I was thinking about occupational therapy?”

It feels as though a hand grips her heart at the question. She never forgot anything about him, really. Whether it was her feelings, the way he tasted against her lips, or whatever random stuff they shared with each other when they were dating. She remembers. “I do. You…have you gotten around looking for schools?” She knows the answer, but asks to urge him to continue.

“No,” he answers with a frown. “And…what, it’s been two years? Two years and I still haven’t made any progress. Nowhere closer to anything new I wanted to achieve.”

She remembers what she told him that day. “I said it then and I’ll say it now, Raf. You can–”

“I know, Casey. If anyone can do it, it’s me. There’s nothing I can’t achieve.” He quotes almost exactly what she said back then, and she couldn’t help but to blush deeply. She tries her best not to focus on that now, meeting his eyes to show how serious she is.

“You just need to… make it happen, Raf. That’s what you’re lacking. Not the passion and dedication, nor the brilliance for it. You just need to take the risk.”

“Oh boy, you should talk to my supervisor. She…” he visibly swallows. “She suspended me again today. Something about taking too much risks.”

“Raf, I’m so…” she frowns. “Is that what this is about? She’s not thinking about firing you, is she?”

“I don’t know, she might be. But what I’ve been thinking about isn’t her or the job, really. It’s Sora.”

Casey takes a deep breath, feeling a little sobered up with the familiar pain in her chest. “What about her?”

“We fought about the suspension, and every other issue we’ve been keeping underneath the surface. She told me that I’m really never going to change, and that I’m gonna be stuck living the exact same life that I’ve been living for two more years. Long story short, we broke up, and it’s like high school all over again. I don’t–” He pauses to breathe only for a brief moment. “I’m usually not insecure about myself but god, am I never gonna be enough?”

“You’re enough, Rafael. You’re enough. You’re always enough.” Casey wills herself to sit still on the bed, because if she made a move to hug him right now she might kiss him too for good measure to show him just how enough.

“You’re my friend, Case. Of course you’d think that. I appreciate it, but..” He shrugged with a small grateful smile.

“What does me being your friend have to do with it? I’m a decent human being with good judgment, that’s that, friend or not.” She frowns.

“Yeah, but.. you’re not considering me as a life partner, you know? Not… not like that. Not anymore.” He explains. “Are we… are we arguing? Why are we arguing about this?”

“Because I think you’re somehow defending her choice and reasons for dumping you, Raf! And I think that’s stupid.” Casey’s mood has obviously taken a turn now. She’s aware that he’s not exactly defending Sora, but she’s suddenly _pissed_. At her, not at him, because she’d give anything to have Rafael back. But he’s the one who’s around that she can actually fight with.

“I’m not–” he frowns at her as well. “I’m not defending her. Her reason fucking sucks, to be perfectly honest. But it is what it is. I already said that I appreciated you trying to tell me I’m enough, but…”

“But what? My opinion doesn’t hold a candle to your _precious_ Sora? Because I’m _just_ your friend?” Casey continues to challenge him.

“No-!”

“Then what, Raf?”

“Because you’re not considering me romantically! Meu deus, that’s all I’m saying, Casey!”

“Joke’s on you, Rafael, because I _do_. I have been for the past two years. And I wish you’d just fucking accept what I said instead of going on about how we’re friends _yet again_. We’re exactly just that, I get it. You repeating it every now and then is getting fucking annoying. Fuck, you’re making me curse!”

Rafael slowly gets up on his knees on the floor in front of her, reaching out to take her hand in his, but decides against it at the last minute, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Casey, I didn’t…”

“Of course you didn’t know that I love you. It’s obviously the last thing you wanted to imagine, I know that now. But I do love you, Raf, for I’m pretty sure more than two years now.”

“Will you let me speak, Casey?” Rafael raises his voice slightly, but he doesn’t dare curse again. He clenches his jaw, his eyes searching hers.

She stares back into his eyes intensely, biting on the inside of her cheek. “The floor is all yours,” she challenges, knowing he doesn’t have much to say apart from another apology.

A few seconds pass, until it’s been an entire minute, and like she expected he didn’t speak a word. Casey didn’t realize she’s crying until tears continuously stream down her cheeks. She hides her face into her hands as she cries softly.

She’s so stupid. Did she honestly think that he’ll be telling her just how much he loves her too just because she bared her feelings? He’s been with Sora, for two fucking years. And the worst of it all, they already broke up. _He_ broke up with _her_.

Her spiraling thoughts are interrupted as she feels a hand wrap around her wrist, drawing her hand away from her face, and then the other. She opens her eyes and sees Rafael sitting down next to her on the bed, hands reaching for her face, wiping her tears away.

He speaks no words still, but he cups her face into his hands, a thumb caressing her cheek softly. Their gazes meet again, but neither is upset, both vulnerable and longing.

Somehow this is much more intense for Casey, and she takes a short breath, lips slightly parting which makes Rafael’s eyes travel down to her mouth. Not missing a beat, he starts to lean in slowly, giving her a chance to pull away. When she stays perfectly still, and he hears her take another short gasp of breath, he crashes his lips into hers.

Rafael kisses Casey slowly at first, but he picks up the pace as soon as she starts kissing him back. He holds her face closer to his, deepening the kiss as soon as he remembers how it was like to kiss her. He realizes then how much he missed it.

He tastes like beer and candy, and while she remembers him tasting much sweeter, it was nice. _More than nice_ , but she’s focused on the hammering heart in her chest. More tears stream down her face as they continued kissing, and she repositions herself to face him fully, arms wrapping around his neck, a hand going through his hair.

She thought that she’d never be able to kiss him again. She knows this is wrong, and that she’s only going to hurt herself, but she’ll take the pain if it meant letting him know how much she loves him one last time.

He lays her down on the bed without breaking the kiss, his body gently resting on top of hers. He massages her tongue with his, the rested hand on her hips slowly moving to her stomach and up her shirt.

Casey badly wants to feel his hand on her chest, to feel all of him _everywhere_. But she grabs his wrist and pulls away from the kiss, her free hand guiding his head to rest on her shoulder instead. She worries for a second that he’d hear just how crazy her heart is going, but is unable to make any more movements.

Eyes now wide open, she stares at the ceiling, vision once again getting blurry because of her tears. She realizes that she’s not even sure if she’s stopped crying and just started again, or if her tears flowed continuously. She sniffles softly, arms moving to wrap Rafael in a tight embrace.

 _She wants this so badly_. The times she’d thought about kissing him again and loving him one more time is countless. But in this moment, the one that surely will not lead to anything good, she knew they’ll both regret it.

She loves him too much and she respects herself enough to let this go further.

She feels Rafael’s own tears, and it only made her sob softly, tightening her arms around him. She kisses the top of his head before refraining from moving again, letting him inhale her scent.

 _I love how you smell like love_ , he used to say.

After a long while she starts to move, slipping out from under him and quickly grabbing her phone. Wordlessly, she heads to her door, about to leave the room, but she spares him a glance.

Much to his dismay, she only looked extremely sad and guilty, and then she leaves. He thinks about following her, but decides against it, knowing he shouldn’t be causing more drama at this time of the night.

He looks for his phone, hurriedly pulling up their text conversation, typing up _It doesn’t matter that you’re drunk and I’m drunk, I love you too._

His thumb hovers above the small blue arrow, less than a second away from sending the message, but he thinks about all the tears she already cried. He thinks about the sad, tired lookshe gave him.

He thinks about how after the too long, probably miserable two years, she already had it in her to finally walk away from him.

He realizes that this is actually the first time she really turned her back on him, then he feels as though he can’t breathe, because he somehow knew that this is also the last.

With the thought of her wordless goodbye, he decides to this time be the good friend. He chooses not to tell her his lie.


End file.
